Defendant tells of deadly fight

Knife in her hand "felt funny," says Tina Karuzas at her manslaughter trial

Updated 11:50 pm, Tuesday, November 13, 2012

SCHENECTADY — Tina Karuzas told jurors that the knife she had in her right hand "felt funny" when she used that hand to prevent Latoya Ebron from choking her as they fought just inside Karuzas' apartment in December.

"When I went to block her, I don't know how to describe it, but the knife felt funny," said Karuzas while testifying Tuesday in her manslaughter trial in Schenectady County Court. "It was like when you go from holding it (a knife) to cutting meat."

Under questioning from her attorney, Karuzas, 28, said the fatal encounter over loud music coming from her upstairs Elm Street apartment during a late-night party on Dec. 26 "went from trying to scare (Ebron) away to an altercation so fast."

Ebron, who lived downstairs, had gone upstairs to confront Karuzas about the music because it was keeping Ebron's children from sleeping.

Karuzas told the jury the fight erupted inside the doorway of the apartment after Ebron, 26, refused to leave and yanked her by the hair after she had already promised to turn the music down.

"Did you intentionally stab her with that knife?" Public Defender Mark Caruso asked his client.

"No, sir," said Karuzas, who claims she acted in self defense.

She said Ebron, who was stabbed in the abdomen, retreated back down the stairs.

Karuzas said she ran into the bathroom and placed the knife, which she said had a "spot or two of blood and another spot or two of clear liquid" on it. She called 911 from the bathroom.

In that recording, which Caruso played for the jury, a frantic Karuzas tells the dispatcher that a woman she has had problems with tried to break into her home and attacked her. She never mentioned Ebron by name during the emergency call.

"She was going for my throat, I had the knife in my hand, and I'm pretty sure I got her," Karuzas tells the dispatcher. "I didn't do it intentionally, I'm freaking out, that's not what I was trying to do."

The calls ends when police show up.

She also testified when questioned by her attorney that she had gotten the knife from a friend in early December as protection and usually kept it on her person or in her bedroom.

During cross-examination, Karuzas, who spoke quietly throughout, told the prosecutor she grabbed the knife when she went to answer the door.

"You had it at the ready. Ready to use it," Assistant District Attorney William Sanderson queried.

After he pressed her for a yes-or-no answer, she answered "not exactly" and said she had it in the pocket of a hooded sweatshirt when the party began hours earlier.

The prosecutor also pointed out that while the much heavier Karuzas was armed with a knife and had between 10 to 15 party-goers in the apartment, the diminutive Ebron was by herself with a cellphone.

He also argued that Karuzas had grown tired of Ebron and "baited" her to the party with the loud music and then stabbed her, a notion Karuzas rejected.

Sanderson displayed the knife for the jury while aggressively questioning Karuzas and later handed her a ruler and asked her to stand up and demonstrate her positioning before and during the stabbing.

The defense will wrap up its case on Wednesday before the attorneys give their summations.